Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a significant transnational issue. In the DRC, forests are cleared for agricultural purposes by utilizing slash and burn techniques. Aside from the visible depletion of resources, deforestation of the DRC also leads to a lost habit for the mountain gorilla among other rare species like the okapi, resulting in decreased biodiversity, soil erosion, and contribute to climate change. Since 1990, the rate of deforestation in the DRC has remained constant at 0.20%, which equates to the loss of 311,000 hectares, or roughly 1,200 square miles, annually. This amounts to destroying forests the size of Delaware every two years. The fact that the rate of deforestation has remained constant over the last twenty years is misleading as one might believe that government or non-government organizations (NGO) interventions have been responsible for the decline, but reports indicate otherwise. Three reasons have been postulated as to why deforestation rates have remained relatively low: 1) the road network within the country has been gradually in decline making access to more remote areas more difficult, 2) political and regulatory changes have disincentivized investment in the country, and 3) agriculture has expanded outside of forest areas. Additionally, while the rates remain constant, wood removal (measured in cubic meters) continues to dramatically increase annually. Industrialized roundwood has increased from 3.05 million cubic meters in 1990 to 4.45 million cubic meters in 2010; fuelwood has increased from 44.2 million cubic meters to 75.44 million cubic meters annually in that same time. The rainforest in the Congo Basin is the largest rainforest in Africa and second only to the Amazon Basin in size, with 300 million hectare compared to the 800 million hectares in the Amazon. Roughly fifty percent (154 million hectare) of the remaining rainforest in the Congo Basin lies within the boundaries of the DRC. The DRC is one of the most Flora rich countries on the continent. It is home for more than 10,000 types of plants, 600 timber species, as well as 1,000 bird species, 280 reptile species, and 400 mammal species, including the forest elephant, gorilla, forest buffalo, bongo, and okapi. Many of these wildlife species are threatened animals such as large lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. The deforeastation destroys the biological diversity in the Congo Basin forest. Specifically, 60 percent of the forest elephant population drops due to the loss of shelter caused by illegal logging. The direct causes of deforestation within the DRC are well understood and have been identified consistently by many sources. The direct causes are as follows: 1) road infrastructure development, 2) slashing and burning the forests to transform forest land into agricultural land, 3) the collection of fuelwood and charcoal, and lastly 4) unregulated artisanal and small-scale logging. The United Nations Environment Programme has identified the priority in which the causes should be addressed as slash and burn agriculture first, the collection of fuelwood second, unregulated artisanal and logging third, and road infrastructure development fourth. Both mining and logging create similar secondary deforestation through road construction. Specifically, logging companies construct new roads into previously inaccessible forest areas which facilitates the conversion of logged forests by into agricultural land. This has led to the immigration of landless farmers, in particular from eastern savanna regions, to enter primary forest areas through logging roads.